Son of Herbie The Love Bug

Many’s the time I’ve fallen in love with a car. This time, I believe a car has fallen in love with me.

When a car opens its outstretched arms, what could it be but love?

The car in question is a used-like-new Kia Soul, a comic box on wheels in an unearthly shade Kia calls “Alien Pearl.”

I formerly called this color Puke Green.

And I formerly knew our new car as The Pukemobile. But now I’ve decided it’s Herbie II, The Love Bug reincarnated.

You may remember the original Herbie from the 1968 Disney comedy “The Love Bug.” He (it?) was the VW Beetle that starred along with Dean Jones of the tousled hair and that fetching pixie, Michelle Lee.

Like Disney’s Herbie, our Herbie is so ugly he’s cute. And like Disney’s, our Herbie has a brain.

What a brain.

As I approach Herbie II, it (he?) welcomes me with open arms. OK, the sideview mirrors fan out. Whatever. On a chilly morning, it sure warms a cold heart.

Press the keyless-ignition button and Herbie greets me with a little tunelet. Exit the driveway and he’s got me covered with that backup cam I’m still trying to get used to. Start driving and get set for state-of-the-art enhanced sound via AM/FM (including HD channels), Sirius/XM, Pandora for crying out loud.

Hands-free phone calls? Check. Every-damn-thing digital readout? But of course. Heated steering wheel? ¡Como no! Heated seats? Mais oui mon vieux, and fan-cooled too for summer wedgies. Voice-activated GPS? We’re still trying to figure that one out but it’s there, it’s there.

Most heartwarming of all ... As I return home and head into the driveway, the ring of door chimes.

Aww.

How can you not love such a car?

But like many spring flings, this love can’t last. I know just how it will end, too.

One gloomy day, when the speedometer is reading 35,000 or 40,000 miles, the frammis will fail or the veeblefetzer will stop veebling. Tim the Not-So-Friendly Mechanic will feign sorrow then say that’ll be, oh, $1,874.35 for a new motherboard chipset to reattach the URL to the ISP without blowing the PDA.

Carol will look at me. I will look at Carol. That’s a lot of money for a new veeblefetzer, we will agree. Simultaneously, we will shrug.

And I will sulk. At 3 a.m., unable to sleep, I will pad outside in bathrobe and slippers and, with Herbie at my side, I will bay my sorrow to the weeping moon.

Herbie, though mute, will be sympathizing. I know. Those mirrors again.

P.S. To Do Justice is finished. Though there’s still plenty of work left, I have written “The End” to the manuscript of the final novel in my Chicago Trilogy. Now to find a publisher. I’m pitching agents at the Books Alive! conference in two weeks. Wish me luck.